“In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
-Acts 17:30-31, NIV
God does not just forgive us as some cheater apologists might suggest.
The Apostle Paul here makes our response to Christ’s sacrifice necessary in order to avoid condemnation from Jesus. That response is called
REPENTANCE!
Here we see that the Apostle Paul is insisting upon the Greeks ending their worship of other gods–i.e. gods fashioned in gold or other materials. Such is the ignorance of which Paul speaks.
If these Greeks chose not to repent–i.e. cease their worship of other gods and turn to the One True God, then Paul is implying that they would face Jesus’ just judgment (and thereby condemnation).
So is Paul wrong?
Is it really necessary to cease from one’s sin and turn to God in order to be forgiven by Jesus? Or are these Greeks forgiven irrespective to their choice to or not to repent?
I ask this because many faithful spouses are pressured to forgive without the cheater being expected to repent. Christians–pastors included–teach that forgiveness happens apart from repentance.
From this perspective, the cheater does not even have to stop lying and cheating for the pastor or other Christian leader to insist upon the faithful spouse forgiving such an individual.
Such a teaching is saying–in essence–that the Apostle Paul is wrong here!
That is the only conclusion one can draw when people totally disassociate repentance from the act of forgiveness unlike the Apostle Paul here in Acts 17.
Now, I am all for transferring the debt to God for Him to handle in order to move on with one’s life without the anger burdens over real injustices. Forgiveness in that sense IS unilateral and without connection to repentance.
However…
I think we do cheaters–and faithful spouses–as disservice by teaching such sins are forgiven unilaterally. They are not.
Repentance is still required by God to deal with matter even if the faithful spouse has “transferred” the debt to God.
Just as God’s forgiveness for these Greeks in Athens did not come apart from repentance, God’s forgiveness for cheaters–or anyone for that matter–does not come without a forsaking of the sin.
Teaching anything less contradicts the Apostle Paul’s clear teaching here in Acts 17 and does a disservice to the Gospel!
I am really struggling in this area. My husband assured me that we would find a good counselor and go after I returned home after leaving him last year. He won’t go. My hardest struggle is honestly after he spent almost an entire year trying to convince me that there was no affair ( all of my evidence was circumstantial but honestly it looked bad. Even he has admitted that). I then discovered less then a year ago that he had been hiding our entire savings! I left him and the money came back after he’d been lying to me for days before I left. I came home with the promise of counseling. It hasn’t happened and it’s been 10 months. Why does a man hide that kind of money from his wife of over 30 years unless he was considering leaving? He told me he was but not for another woman. He has begged for forgiveness and says he didn’t leave so it didn’t count. I realize I’m still having some major anxiety issues as a result of all this. In all honesty…. can just pride do this? We have never struggled financially and I am not a spender. Sometimes I feel like he’s repented to the Lord but not to me because he knows the consequences would be great.